The dungeons of Hogwarts had never seemed so treacherous, nor so unbearably alive. Abraxas had memorized every shadow, every echo of dripping water along the ancient stones, and yet tonight they felt different—hostile, watching. He knew why. He was carrying a secret in his chest so volatile that if it escaped, it could undo him.

You.

It was absurd, almost laughable—if laughter were still a thing he permitted himself. A Malfoy’s heart was not meant to beat for anything but lineage and legacy. He had told himself this since childhood, believed it with the same conviction he believed in his own superiority. Until you. Until one glance across tables, your quill tapping in thought, your hair catching the lamplight. It had been like a spell without incantation—something that struck him, ruthlessly, without permission.

They should not have been near each other. Not you, with your bloodline that his family scorned, nor with your ideals. Not him, heir to Wiltshire’s cold manor, groomed to play chess with people as though they were pawns. A Malfoy and… you. It was heresy. It was impossible.

And yet here you were.

Pressed against him in a corridor hidden behind a tapestry of Salazar himself, the air thick with dust and the scent of stone. His hands were in your hair, rougher than he meant, desperate, as if by anchoring himself to you he could keep from drowning in the storm you had become inside him. Your lips clashed against his, bruising, violent in their urgency. The kind of kiss that devoured rather than asked, the kind that said we may not see tomorrow, so tonight we take everything.

He gasped into your mouth, breathless, whispering against you between the collisions of lips and teeth. “I love you. Do you hear me? I love you—”

Your reply was immediate, muffled against him, a frantic echo of his confession. “I love you, I love you—”

Each repetition was a lifeline, as though the words themselves could hold back the inevitability of discovery. He felt his pupils dilate at the sight of you, the way your face looked so near to his—flushed, alive, reckless. No amount of aristocratic discipline could disguise how undone he was. He had never believed himself capable of this, of loving with such ferocity that it left cracks in his composure. But for you, his restraint snapped like kindling.

His mouth left yours only to fall to your throat, whispering the words again like they were a curse, or a prayer. “I love you. Merlin, I love you.” The repetition made his voice tremble in a way it never did in debate, in duel, in confrontation. Only here, hidden in your arms, did he allow himself to fracture.

And yet, always, there lingered the danger. If Orion Black or—worse—Tom Riddle himself found them, it would not simply be gossip. It would be ruin. Malfoys did not consort with weakness, with impurity, with ideals that ran contrary to power. And you—bright, defiant, everything he should have despised—you had undone him.

The memory of how it began haunted him even as he kissed you now. A debate in the Arithmancy classroom, long after hours, when he’d caught you correcting a professor’s theorem under your breath. He should have ridiculed you, should have struck you down with words. Instead, he’d stayed to argue. And then again the next week. And again, until the arguments turned into glances, glances into accidental touches, touches into a hunger he could no longer name as hatred.

Now, here in the stolen dark, there was no pretense left. His hands cupped your face as if memorizing it, his breath shaking as he pressed his forehead to yours. “Say it again,” he commanded, though his voice cracked.

“I love you,” you whispered, and his chest clenched like a spell was binding him from within.

The words were dangerous. They were forbidden. They were all he had ever wanted.

Footsteps echoed faintly in the distant corridor. He froze, still holding you as though letting go would end him. His grey eyes, usually so cold, were wide and blazing with a devotion that terrified him.

“You are mine. And I am yours—though Merlin damn me for it.”